Passing probe captures images of mysterious Mars moon

Summary

The European Space Agency’s Hera probe captured images of Mars’s smaller moon, Deimos, during a high-speed flyby.

The 8-mile-wide, dust-covered moon, tidally locked with Mars, remains poorly understood. Scientists believe it could be debris from an impact or a captured asteroid.

The flyby, part of Hera’s journey to study asteroids, used a gravity assist to propel the probe toward Dimorphos, a moonlet of Didymos.

Hera will analyze Dimorphos, which NASA’s Dart probe hit in 2022, to assess asteroid deflection strategies for planetary defense.